


Kiss Me Like One Of Your French Frogs

by noxlee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Transformation, Canon Universe, Fairy Tale Curses, Frogs, M/M, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 14:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18283778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlee/pseuds/noxlee
Summary: When a routine hunt goes sideways, Cas is hit with a curse and turned into a frog. Sam and Dean hit the books to find a cure, and Dean finds more than he bargained for.





	Kiss Me Like One Of Your French Frogs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueeyesandpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueeyesandpie/gifts).



> Written for the Profound Bond gift exchange for Sunny <3
> 
> I owe a world of thanks to [EmiliaOagi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmiliaOagi/pseuds/EmiliaOagi). Thank you for dragging me through this terrible writing slump I'm in, and for being such an excellent beta both with this fic and with all the ideas and iterations before this that I had to keep scrapping. 
> 
> Thanks also to Ry for the ingenious title and to omgbubbles for the delightful plethora of frog puns. 
> 
> You're all toadally awesome.

“How was the hunt?” Sam asked. His nose was buried in a book and he didn’t look up when Dean trudged into the bunker library.

“Not good, Sammy.” Dean slammed his bag down on the table and watched Sam jolt in surprise. “Pretty fucking awful in fact.”

Sam looked around in alarm. “What happened? Where’s Cas?”

Dean slid the Coleman cooler across the table and gestured at it. “Inside.” He sighed, rubbing his hand over his mouth.

“Inside—?” Sam frowned and opened the lid to the cooler and jumped back in surprise for the second time in as many minutes. He glared at Dean. “That’s a frog. In the cooler.” His nose wrinkled. “The cooler that we put _food_ in. Gross, Dean, what the hell?!”

“Fucking witches, man.” Dean shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know what else to do or where to put him where I wouldn’t, you know, lose him or step on him or—"

“You mean—” Sam peered into the cooler at the frog that stared rather grumpily back up at him. “Shit, _Cas_?”

The frog croaked and Sam shot an incredulous look at Dean.

“I dusted the witch,” Dean said. “But not before she got Cas. She was aiming for me and Cas—there was this little gold ball that she threw at me and Cas jumped in front of it and—” he peered over the edge of the cooler. “You dumb sonofabitch,” he muttered. “It should have been me.”

“Huh,” Sam mused. “I wonder if he can understand us. Do you think it’s still Cas in there?”

“Oh he can understand us alright. He was giving me the stink eye the whole drive back.”

Sam nodded to himself thoughtfully. Then he smiled at the frog and gave a small wave of his hand. “Hi, Cas.”

The frog— _Cas—_ croaked back at him.

“Focus,” Dean hissed.

“Right,” Sam said, snapping into action. “Okay we can fix this. There’s gotta be a way to reverse the spell.”

“There sure as hell better be.”

\-----

Several hours later, Sam was buried under a mountain of books and spell supplies and Dean had unceremoniously dumped an unamused Castiel out of the cooler and thoroughly sanitized it. Even then, it would probably be awhile before Sam would willingly use it again.

Cas, for his part, had stared intently at both of them as they worked. It was unnerving, and yet not altogether unfamiliar. Dean had tried to scoop him into a large glass bowl with a spoon, but Cas kept hopping out onto the table, and there was no arguing with a stubborn frog.

Now that they were back safely in the bunker and research well underway, Dean’s panic from earlier had eased off. He yawned and his eyes glazed over the passage he was reading on animal curses. He sighed, then grinned. “This book is just so ribbeting, I can’t put it down.” He prodded at Cas with the end of his spoon. “Get it?”

Cas’s glare was no less effective as a frog. He squinted at him, pupils narrowed, and Dean had the distinct impression he was being scolded.

Across the table, Sam scoffed.

Dean sighed and cracked open another book.

\-----

“I think I’ve got it!” Sam finally announced, breaking the monotonous silence.

“Oh thank God,” Dean groaned, and slammed his book shut. Cas perked up, and looked curiously at Sam.

“Okay, so this spell should work to reverse animal transformation,” Sam said, and shoved an open book towards Dean. “We’ve got all the supplies, we just need a personal belonging from the person who was turned.”

“Cas ain’t exactly a person, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have belongings,” Dean said, frowning.

“Well I’m going to get the other supplies and get things started,” Sam said. “Take a look, will you? There’s gotta be something of his around here somewhere.”

Cas suddenly jumped back in the bowl staring insistently at Dean.

“Well alright then,” Dean said. “I guess Kermit’s coming with me.” He grinned and picked up the bowl. “Let’s hop to it, Cas.”

\-----

Dean wandered down the bunker’s halls carrying Cas in the bowl and humming to himself. He found himself outside the room that Cas often spent time in and pushed the door open gently, unsurprised to find the room bare but for the sparse Men of Letters furniture. There were no clothes, no photos, no personal effects whatsoever. Nothing to show that Cas had ever been there at all.

Dean set the bowl on the dresser and swallowed down a feeling of unease as he opened and shut empty drawers.

“Hey, Cas?” Dean said, shutting yet another drawer. “When we get you back to normal, I was thinking maybe we should get you some things you can call your own. Some books, maybe? Would you like that? A fluffy blanket and a—”

He fell silent as he opened the drawer of the desk. Inside was a notebook and a box of graphite pencils. He carefully lifted the notebook out of the drawer, flipped softly through its pages, and let out a low whistle.

He glanced over at Cas, silently asking permission. Cas stared back unperturbed, so Dean continued.

It was filled with soft hand-drawn pencil sketches— the level of care and detail in each one breathtakingly beautiful. The first few pages were filled with still life. Flowers, trees, a road that Dean recognized as the one leading to the bunker. In fact, as Dean thumbed through, the scenes became increasingly familiar. There was the bowl of fruit Sam kept in the kitchen, the lamp in the library, the impala, and the parking lot from the motel they stayed at just outside of Portland. Dean swallowed a lump in his throat as he flipped through the last half of the book where Cas had progressed to portraiture. There was Sam, hunched over his laptop, telltale slump to his shoulders. And there was Dean himself, grinning. And Dean driving. And Dean with his feet up on the table, one resting on top of the other. And a whole series of disconnected anatomy— hands wrapped around beer bottles and a long series of eyes that looked suspiciously like his own.

Suddenly feeling as though he was intruding on something intensely personal, Dean hastily ripped a single sheaf of paper from the first half of the notebook— a rougher sketch of bird that Cas clearly hadn’t been happy with, as he’d scribbled over it. He closed the notebook and set it carefully back in the desk, shutting the drawer quietly.

He turned back to the dresser and locked eyes with Cas who had cocked his head to one side and seemed to be considering Dean. A weighty silence passed between them before Dean cleared his throat and forced a shaky laugh. “Well, I guess that answers the question of what you do all night while we’re sleeping, huh?”

“They’re really good drawings, Cas,” he muttered down at the bowl as he made his way back to the library. “You’re uh… you’re really talented.”

Sam looked up when he returned, and Dean folded the page he’d torn out carefully, slipping it into the bowl of spell ingredients that Sam had assembled.

“Alright, let’s do this then.”

Sam plucked Cas out of the bowl between his thumb and forefinger, nose wrinkling, and set him carefully down on the sigil he’d drawn. He then cleared his throat and read the spell aloud.

Dean lit the match and tossed it into the bowl.

Three sets of eyes stared at the flame that suddenly shot up and pulsed a bright lime green colour. Sparks flew and there was a loud bang before it flared back down to a dull glow in the bottom of the bowl, then fizzled out entirely.

Dean coughed and waved his hand to clear the smoke.

Cas remained in the middle of the sigil, still looking very much like a disgruntled frog.

“Huh,” Sam said. “Maybe we better start from the beginning.”

\-----

“I’m telling you, Sam, that’s all I know,” Dean sighed an hour later as they pored over still more books.

“So first you thought it was a werewolf, because of the mangled old lady and her granddaughter.”

“Right,” Dean snorted. “And _somebody_ didn’t want to come because it was an open and shut case.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “But then there was the woman who dropped dead while eating an apple and the model who pricked her finger doing needlepoint and fell into a coma.”

“Yeah, that’s when I called you. We figured we had Little Red, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty and I thought of that case we worked in Maple Springs. Cas scoured the hospitals like you said, looking for anyone else in a coma, especially kids. And I Iooked into recent deaths in the area for anything that might seem like vengeful spirit material.

“No dice?” Sam asked.

“No shit. Turns out it wasn’t a kid this time, it was a goddamn witch.”

“But why the fairy tale deaths?”

“Hell if I know.”

“And you said it was a gold ball?”

“Yeah. It kind of poofed into gold dust and got all over Cas. I was able to get the shot that took her down, but by then Cas was… well.”

“Hmm,” Sam mused. “Alright, it’s late. We’re not getting anywhere. Let’s turn in and get some shut eye and we’ll start research again in the morning with fresh eyes.”

They debated at length about what to do with Cas during the night. Sam suggested they leave him on the table but Dean wasn’t so comfortable with that. What if he hopped off and got lost or crushed somewhere. Amidst their argument, Cas hopped into the glass bowl again, settling the decision for Dean. He scooped up the bowl and detoured through the kitchen first on his way to bed.

“What do frogs even eat, anyway?” he yelled, as Sam disappeared down the hall to his own room.

“Insects, mostly!” Sam called back.

“Gross,” Dean muttered, wrinkling his nose at Cas who stared dolefully back up at him. He’d put some grass and twigs in the bowl and a shallow puddle of water in the bottom which Cas seemed quite taken with. He was worried about food though.

“Oh, I know!” Dean said, suddenly remembering the spider that had taken up residence on one of the kitchen shelves that Cas has absolutely forbade him to kill. Sometimes, Dean caught him talking to it when he didn’t think Dean could hear him.

Ignoring the reproachful glare from Cas, Dean made a clean sweep of the spider web and deposited both it and the spider into the bowl.

The reproachful look turned downright lethal.

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, raising his hands in surrender. “I guess you didn’t have to eat as an angel. Maybe you don’t have to as a frog either.” Bolstered by this, Dean carried Cas down the hallway with him. He stopped outside the room he had come to think of as belonging to Cas, having intended to put the bowl in there for the night. But the thought of locking Cas in that empty room had him turning instead for the door to his own room.

“You can stay with me, just for tonight,” Dean decided. “Someone should keep an eye on you.”  He shut the door so Cas couldn’t get far if he decided to go exploring and set the bowl down on his bedside table.

He smiled when realized that the black markings on Cas looked sort of like wings. He patted Cas awkwardly on the head, and he wasn’t _that_ slimy, not really.

“Night, Cas,” he said, and Cas nuzzled against his hand. He left the bowl on the bedside table, turned off the light, rolled over, and went to sleep.

\-----

In the morning, Dean woke to a frog on his pillow right next to his face.

“Jesus, Cas!” Dean swore and nearly fell out of bed. “Not any less creepy when you’re an amphibian.”

Frowning, he scooped Cas up and deposited him back in the bowl. “I could have smushed you if I’d rolled over, you know.”

Dean carried Cas with him to the kitchen and set him down on the counter as he set about making breakfast. Cas seemed disinclined to stay in the bowl today though, and instead made a wild hop and perched himself on Dean’s shoulder, where he remained.

As the bacon sizzled, Dean chatted away, heedless of the fact that Cas couldn’t respond. It was kind of nice— the small weight on his shoulder keeping him company, seemingly content to listen to Dean’s dumb jokes and his offkey humming as he cracked eggs.

And it was nice knowing Cas wasn’t going anywhere. No flapping off to important angel business. Dean found he really enjoyed breakfast in the morning with Cas. He set him down on the table alongside his plate of breakfast.

“You know,” Dean said between mouthfuls of food, “even once you’re back to normal, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to watch over my shoulder while I’m cooking.

Cas stared up at him and Dean felt himself flush. He stabbed at his eggs and shovelled them quickly into his mouth.

“Just… you know,” he mumbled. “Hang out here more?”

Dean couldn’t be sure, but he thought maybe Cas was looking at him more fondly than before. On a hunch, Dean proffered a strip of bacon and Cas poked at it with interest, a long thin tongue shooting out to lick at it.

\-----

Sam had already been for a run and was elbow deep in research by the time Dean emerged in the library cradling Cas’s bowl in his arms. He’d left a few strips of bacon in the bottom, and Cas was still licking at them.

“I’ve been thinking about fairy tales.” Sam said as Dean took a seat.

“Course you have, Rapunzel,” Dean said, grinning.

Sam carried on, nonplussed. “Fairy tales are generally considered to be an easier way of looking at the human condition, you know? A safely removed way to fictionalize all our deepest fears. Magic and transformation… I can see how that would be fascinating to a witch.”

“Or to nerds such as yourself.”

Sam levelled him with an epic bitch face before continuing. “Maybe the key to breaking the curse is to look at the fairy tales themselves. The deaths that looked like a werewolf attack looked like Little Red Riding Hood. There was the woman who died eating an apple who you called Snow White.” Sam grinned. “What fairy tale turns people into a frog?”

Dean lit up. “That one with Naveen! I mean, er, Tiana.” He cleared his throat and rubbed at the back of his neck. “What was it called again?”

Sam snorted. “The Princess and the Frog, and you know exactly what it’s called. How many times have you watched it now?”

Dean felt his face colour but Sam mercifully continued.

“Anyway, the Disney movie is based on the story of The Frog Prince. A spoiled princess accidentally drops a _golden ball_ into a pond. A frog agrees to retrieve it for her if she will love him and keep him as a companion. Her father, the king, makes her keep her promise and she must carry the frog around with her to eat from her plate and sleep on her pillow.”

Dean frowned over at Cas who was trying unsuccessfully to swallow a piece of bacon, and he thought of the surprise on his own pillow that morning. He reached over to crumble the bacon into smaller, frog-sized chunks.

“When the princess kisses the frog, he transforms into a handsome prince and they lived happily ever after,” Sam said.

“Well that’s just great,” Dean said. “Where are we going to find a princess?”

“There’s another version of the story,” Sam said, looking shifty. “Uh, the princess throws the the frog against the wall in disgust, which breaks the spell. We could, um, try tossing it?” He glanced over at Cas. “Just gently, to see if anything happens?”

Dean stared at him in horror and curled himself around Cas’s bowl, pulling it close to his chest. “It’s not an _it_ , Sam, it’s _Cas_. And we’re not hurling him anywhere.”

Sam sighed. “Alright then, do you happen to know any princesses?”

“Uh..”

“That’s what I thought. And assuming we can even find one, who’s going to want to kiss a frog? I mean, look at him.” He gestured at Cas and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Hey now, he’s not _that_ bad.” Dean scritched the top of Cas’s head and Cas rubbed himself against Dean’s hand in response. “Not even that slimy, really.” He scooped him up and held him out to Sam.

Sam jolted back in disgust.

Dean rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, he’s just a frog. Look, it’s not that hard.” Dean planted a quick kiss to the top of Cas’s head to demonstrate.

There was a loud bang and a flash of smoke. When it cleared, Cas was was back to his usual trenchcoated self, sitting cross-legged on the table, wide-eyed and nose-to-nose with Dean. He looked utterly stunned, and Dean was too shocked to move.

“You kissed me,” Cas said. His voice was parched and more gravely than normal—if that were even possible—like he hadn’t spoken in days.  

Dean stammed for a response, unable to formulate one and unable to move, frozen in place with his face mere inches from Cas’s.

Sam cleared his throat and Dean scrambled to lean back, toppling his chair in the process and falling to the ground. Cas peered over the edge of the table and squinted down at him.

“You _kissed_ me,” he said again, incredulously.

“You know,” Sam said, clearing his throat more emphatically. “There another thing that often prompts transformation in fairy tales. Ever heard of true love’s kiss?”

Dean stared, aghast.

“I’ll let you two mull that one over then,” Sam said, standing up. He patted Cas on the shoulder. “Good to have you back, Cas,” he said, and sauntered off to the kitchen with the biggest shit-eating grin Dean had ever seen.

Cas slid off the table and held a hand out to Dean, who grasped it and pulled himself to his feet. Cas was still squinting suspiciously at him and Dean couldn’t help but smile.

“It really is good to have you back, Cas,” he admitted. Then he schooled his features into something more resembling indignation and smacked him—hard—square in the chest. “But don’t _ever_ do that again. What were you thinking jumping in front of an unknown curse like that? You could have been killed.”

Cas smiled in response. Just an upwards tick of the side of his mouth. A small, soft, secret smile that set something aflutter in Dean’s heart. “You kissed me,” he whispered again, swaying into Dean’s personal space.

And Dean could have pulled away— should have pulled away when Cas’s hands came up to either side of his face and held him, inches from his own. Instead, Dean found himself leaning closer.

It was nothing like kissing him as a frog. A lot less slimy, for one thing.

No, this time it was soft, slightly parched lips beneath his own. A timid, gentle, ghost of a kiss.  The warmth of Cas’s breath danced against his skin, and Dean melted into it, devouring the hesitation from Cas’s lips and replacing it with his own desperate need.

Cas pulled back first, and Dean stumbled forward in a daze, steadied by firm hands on his shoulders.

Cas stared at him, chuckling. His whole face lit up, nose scrunching, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I guess this makes you the princess.”

“Shut up,” Dean laughed, and smacked him again, playfully this time.

“I think the next time I draw you I should add a crown.”

“Hm, yeah about that,” Dean said, nudging Cas’s shoulder with his own. He took a deep breath and reached down to take Cas’s hand in his, threading their fingers together. Without looking back up, he mumbled, “Maybe you could draw us together next time?”

“I’d like that,” Cas said.

 

And they lived happily ever after.

“Finally,” Sam muttered from the kitchen.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://nox-lee.tumblr.com/post/183823037793/kiss-me-like-one-of-your-french-frogs-on-ao3-when) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/558892).
> 
> And be sure to check out all the other great fics in the exchange collection!


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